A silk reeling demonstration near Wuxi, China was fascinating and educational. The cocoons are floating in hot water to help dislodge the threads. The operator of the machine must catch the tiny threads from the silk cocoons, and then the machine unreels the silk from the cocoon and onto a spool. Some cocoons have as much as 1000 meters (3280 feet) of silk thread on them, which shows how tightly wound these jelly-bean sized cocoons are! If you look closely here and in the next picture, you can see all of the VERY thin threads going from the small white silk cocoons up to the spools (reels). Several of these thin threads are spun together into a yarn that can be woven into the beautiful silk garments we all love.

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Photo © 2004 Linda Garrison, licensed to About.com, Inc.

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